Part Time trading journal

Pip-Skywalker · June 30, 2019, 10:30am

The reason why i decided to make my trading journal public, is lack of discipline.
Let me explain briefly.

I got in to trading on July 6 2015, i went through a cycle which i believe many of you have gone through starting with complete and utter fascination and the “OMG this is the best thing in the history of the universe” attitude. Read a ton of books and god knows how many hours of useless and useful trading videos.
And after 4 years of being completely immersed in all of this, i believe i can start a demo account for at least 6 months, and after that, if all goes well, go live.
Note: i have gone live before, lost about 20% of my account, and decided to go back to the old drawing board again. But, the problem as always is emotional or psychological, rather then not having adequate trading knowledge.

Anyway, last week i opened a trade, and after a few days of sideways price action, i noticed that i actually entered at a major resistance point. This was the breaking point for me.
I have to be accountable to someone or something, mostly to myself. So the best way to avoid embarrassing rookie mistakes like that is by recording my thought process and all my decisions and making them public. I am hoping this will make me more disciplined.

As far as how and what do i trade.
I am purely going to use technical analysis on longer time frames.
I’ve been through multiple trading systems, and so far Hector De Ville’s is the one that resonates with me the most, so that is the thing i am using and applying.

For those of you familiar with his work, he has a couple of different trading strategies. I am going to be using 2 of them.

Part Time Trading
3 SMA trend following system.

The Part Time Trading system is based on diagonal and horizontal levels of S/R on long term time frames (D, W, M). Basically we either get a breakout or a bounce, and i will be using specific candlestick formations to base my entries on.

The 3 SMA trend following system can be used on any time frame, but since i truly believe that long term trading can be just as, if not even more profitable than day trading, here also i will search for trends starting from 4H all the way up to the monthly time frame.

On each position i am risking 3% of my account, except in more risky situations, where i will either cut down on my trading size, or use other tricks to reduce my risk.

Any kind of opinion would be more then welcomed, since this is the first time i am sharing my trading journal.

On the next post i will share my current watchlist, the current positions i have open, and what was my reasoning behind this,

Falstaff · June 30, 2019, 12:30pm

I think a Demo account will be a good place to start - especially with Risk at 3%

One piece of advice I would offer is to reject the $100,000 type accounts and just use the same account size you are thinking of using for real trading later. That makes it “Feel” more like “Real money”

All the best - look forward to reading more

Pip-Skywalker · June 30, 2019, 12:45pm

Thanks.

I started with 10,000, even though when the real account gets going i am not sure i will be able to invest 10k, but it will give me a good sense percentage wise at what types of potential profits i am looking at.

3% risk is something that Hector recommends, and honestly it makes sense, since 1% is way too low, specially if you have a medium sized account.

frandlost · June 30, 2019, 12:46pm

this is good advice and what I did on my demo account. It makes difference. It helps with putting on too many trades, trade sizing, and realistic practice of getting in and out of trades.

Good luck,

KC

Rickster99 · June 30, 2019, 5:42pm

Nice. I dont understand risky situations. Either it meets the rules or doesnt. Keep it simple. I’m not aware of the 2 strategies you’re using. I guess if they worked people before you are consistently profitable. Anyway best of luck.

Pip-Skywalker · June 30, 2019, 5:43pm

Two weeks ago i opened a brand new demo account of 10 000 EUR. I’ve had many demo accounts with a fairly good success rate, but i’ve never stuck to it like the real deal.

Currently my account balance is 9691 EUR, and the reason i don’t want to start all over is, if this was a real account i would just keep trading, so here it goes.

I lost one position, and 2 are currently open and in minus. I will explain my reasoning behind the trades, but the reason i am disappointing with my self is that i am obviously trigger happy, even though this the long term trading i am supposed to be doing should generate 3/5 signals per month…and i am already on my third trade second week in.

CHF/JPY - Daily time frame.
I saw that price made a breakout of the major resistance point, and waited for a retest to base my entry on. I got the BPC (Breakout Pullback Continuation) aspect, my entry did get triggered, the only issue is that right after activating my buy stop order, price started to stall.
Regardless of current price action, the new trading week begins tomorrow, so if this pair does not start pushing towards the upside, i might decide to manually close this trade, cause obviously something isn’t right, i honestly don’t care what, but if there is no volume, than i don’t won’t be involved in sideways price action.

Pip-Skywalker · June 30, 2019, 9:07pm

Thanks for the input.
I would consider a risky situation for example, i get a pinbar, but the body is a few pips more than i would like to see, then again it’s a weekly level of support…so, i would either cut 50% of my lot size, or widen the stop loss a bit etc.

tommor · June 30, 2019, 9:18pm

Keep up the good work you’ve started.

I am purely long-term trend-following also and it does pay if you’re consistent. But it has some characteristics which make it a tough regime to live with.Stick with it.

Pip-Skywalker · June 30, 2019, 9:42pm

Thank’s, I like talking with all kinds of traders, but it’s always interesting when you see someone who is doing what you are actually trying to achieve.

Pip-Skywalker · July 14, 2019, 10:13am

I’ve been super busy with my job, clocking in more than 12 hours a day, but that’s no excuse.
Anyhow, July was a month in the red for me, bellow is a screenshot of my trading journal.

All in all i lost 239 pips, or 6.7% of my account.
As you can see 3 of my positions did not get triggered at all, and on one of them i even cashed in some profits, but at the end was in minus again.
I am not really frightened by this, cause i know i can make this up with one profitable position. Right now i am focused on this evening, since i have 2 positions lined up, and i need to choose one, because both of them involve the EUR.
I will update later on the details regarding this.

Pip-Skywalker · July 14, 2019, 10:28am

So, right now i am looking at setting up 2 potential pending orders (Sell Stop) for the new trading week.

First one is a setup that i have been following for a long time EUR/GBP, i even tried to get in on the trade, but as you can see from the chart as price has been approaching the major trendline on the Weekly time frame, we got those weird looking pinbars. See screenshot bellow:

But, now this last pinbar actually looks nice, the open and close are almost identical, and it tried to breach the long term trendline effectively giving us a fake breakout formation.
If i decide to get in on this, entry will be 5 pips bellow the lowest point of the pinbar, and Stop Loss 5 pips above the high of the pinbar. As far as target policy goes, i am hoping to get volume filled moves for at least two consecutive candles. If that happens, i will close 50% upon the close of the first weekly candle and another 50% on the close of the second reaction candle. On the other hand if the position gets triggered and there is no momentum, then i will set my first target at the first level of support, ofcourse in both cases i will adjust my stop loss once i cash out 50% of my trade.

Second on is EUR/CAD, see screenshot

EURCAD1439×834 36.4 KB

In this case i have a breakout of a longterm triangle formation, and last week price retested the breakout level with a pinbar, but i am not 100% sure about this setup, cause it looks kinda weird, what i mean is, the entire breakout level, the BPC formation, everything looks kinda fishy to me.

What do you guys this?

tommor · July 14, 2019, 5:45pm

I think what you’ve done with the TA on these charts is good enough to justify your risks. So its given you rationales for direction, when to enter, where to enter and where to set stops. And this is the real point of TA. Its a business planning tool, not a future prediction tool.

So I would say you should go ahead as planned.

But - and I am ready to be shot down - I don’t see the justification for trust in trendlines at all. Wherever I draw a trendline which says one thing, there will be 5 places I could have drawn other trendlines which don’t say that. Selectivity like that isn’t exactly basis for an objective strategy but hey-ho…

Pip-Skywalker · July 14, 2019, 6:29pm

Thanks for the input.
Yea, i get what you’re saying, and it can get frustrating, this is exactly why i try to keep trend lines simple.
I just draw the outer trendline, and only if it’s obvious, otherwise i don’t bother.

I’m gonna go with the EUR/GBP Sell Stop pending order, the only thing i have doubts about is the target. It has a great potential to be a 500 pip bounce, but i will try to be conservative and probably my final exit will be somewhere around the 50% fibonacci level…i don’t know yet, this is driving me crazy right now lol.

Pip-Skywalker · July 15, 2019, 6:31pm

My pending sell stop order did not get triggered by today’s price action. And this is good, because it shows the beauty of long term trading, and pending orders - if your bias is not correct, your position won’t get triggered, or if your entry conditions are not met.
As you can see from the chart, the entire day bulls were in control of the market, on the 4H we can spot that when price actually started approaching last week’s high, it started to loose momentum, and the good part of this is that today’s price action is engulfed by Friday’s price action.
Price still can not breach through, and last time when we had a retracement to the trendline, it took 4 candles before a swing to the downside happened. However this place out, i will either cancel this order and reverse my bias and search for a breakout pattern, or my short will get triggered, it can not stay at this junction forever.

Currently, it’s waiting time, in the meantime i will check up on my watchlist.

justshell · July 26, 2019, 2:42pm

yea , this pair is definitely bullish. I notice a double bottom formed at support

frandlost · July 26, 2019, 3:59pm

Approaching a possible pull back?

justshell · July 26, 2019, 4:15pm

right now, yea that’s what it looks like

Pip-Skywalker · July 28, 2019, 11:42am

I did get triggered, and it starting going down, but price created another pinbar, and not the type i wanted to see. Oh well, i can still leave it open for a week or two to see what will happen.

alphahavoc · July 28, 2019, 4:18pm

Weekly candlestick ended closing up and above weekly mean level showing buying pressure.

With respect to Time Price Opportunity (TPO) chart. Price is currently trading above June Point of control (POC) 0.890 suggestive of bullish sentiments. In July, when the Initial balance breakout above June value area upper border at 0.894 price level, initiative buying was kickoff and reached new High of 0.905. Subsequently, price drop below June Monthly High price at 0.899 and responsive selling commences. July is coming to an end now. Current TPO distribution pattern demonstrate a month of consolidation. Current POC is within 0.896 - 0.898. Most recent daily candle closed above July current POC zone, and is indicative of immediate buying pressure. Price level at 0.894 can be considered as a level of Immediate support for the Month of July. Unless support level at 0.894 is breached, bullish trend should continue at current point of analysis.

Technically, price bounced off June POC zone and currently sits just above July POC upper border showing bullish sentiments.

Pip-Skywalker · July 28, 2019, 4:46pm

This is probably one of the most time efficient trades i have taken so far in my career. I literally opened this position from my phone, because i was not at my pc when i got the signal. But since it was on my watch list from previously, i knew exactly what i was looking for, so it was an easy process.
GBP/CAD Short on 4H, i say efficient because usually i end up with struggling volume on my trades, but this one happened in massive volume as you can see from the screenshot.

Here are the numbers from my MT4. I exited on 3 different places, cause i want to be conservative with the targets.